Video Taliban checkpoint attack kills 21 Afghan soldiers

Twenty-one Afghan soldiers were killed on Sunday after hundreds of heavily armed Taliban insurgents attacked army checkpoints in the east of the country.

It was the deadliest single incident for the Afghan army in at least a year.

General Mohammad Zahir Azimi, a spokesman for the Afghan Defence Ministry, said "hundreds" of foreign and Afghan insurgents crossed the border to mount the attack, which took place in the remote and mountainous Ghazi Abad district of Kunar Province in the early morning hours.

Azimi said beside the deaths, three other soldiers were also wounded in the attack, which turned into an intense, four-hour gun battle between the army and insurgents.

Kunar lies next to Pakistan.

It's a militant stronghold, and many Arab and other foreign insurgents are believed to operate there alongside the Afghan Taliban.

The Taliban claimed responsibility for Sunday's attack in an emailed statement, saying that one of their insurgents was killed and two were wounded.

The group has escalated attacks in recent months as it tries to take advantage of the withdrawal of foreign troops at the end of 2014.

Casualties among Afghan troops have been rising significantly since they took the lead in the war against the Taliban.

Since the beginning of 2014, 84 Afghan army soldiers have been killed.

President Hamid Karzai postponed a planned trip to Sri Lanka in response to the attack, and in a statement condemning it, called on Pakistan to take serious measures to destroy terrorist sanctuaries and fight against terrorism.

Pakistan has a complicated relationship with the Taliban.

It helped the group seize control of Afghanistan in 1996, and Kabul has repeatedly accused Islamabad of providing the insurgents sanctuary on its territory following the US-led invasion of Afghanistan in 2001.




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